On The Line
by soloscribe
Summary: Set at the end of Season 2. Jane's instinct is to help, but it may be too late. Character driven, will be a 2 shot with pt 2 from Maura's POV. Angst with attempted hurt/comfort, friendship driven.
1. Chapter 1

_Well, I started this one long ago in January, but couldn't ever seem to finish it. Part 2 will be easier to write, but equally angst. I do not own Rizzoli and/or Isles because if I did… I'd be on a world tour and writing sequels and making much more money than I do. If you enjoy, please leave a review—they're sort of like candy in my Easter basket._

"Don't touch him! Don't you dare touch him!"

Jane jerks away, scathed by the words and stunned by what has happened. It's cliche, what she hears from hundreds of witnesses, but it's true: _it wasn't supposed to happen like this._

They had a surprisingly simple plan, and while Jane hated the idea of using Maura as bait in any way, shape, or form, she had (reluctantly) agreed that it was the safest way to end this. With both herself and Frost inside and Korsak and Frankie outside... she hadn't planned on Doyle. She hadn't planned on Dean to arrive, either, and she now regrets that she didn't make the connection sooner- that Dean's presence would have meant Doyle's presence.

All that had mattered to her was that they ended it. They had their arsonist, with enough of a confession to make the charges stick. And then the gun had appeared. Jane had been prepared to take the shot. She had the angle, and she had kept the adrenaline manageable enough to focus. Because this mattered, more than any other take down. Because her best friend was on the line.

_The entire building still reeked of smoke, little eddies of soot and charred God-only-knew-what were wafting at the slightest breeze. She felt confident- this was going to be okay. No, it shouldn't be Maura out there, seemingly alone, but they had back up. Good back up._

_To her left, movement caught her eye, and she almost blew their cover right then and there. She almost sent a round through Agent Dean. He was definitely Agent Dean right now, and the only thing she can think to ask is 'did you follow me?'_

_Dean denied it, and she pushed it aside. There would be time to be pissed later. Once Maura was okay._

_She peeked through the debris, carefully shifting so as not to make noise or give them away. Her finger curled around the trigger of her gun, and she was a few pounds of pressure from squeezing when the first shot rang out. Her honed senses caught the movement above, and she cursed inwardly that she had missed the catwalk. Some instinct kept her from firing immediately upward, and she was shocked to realize who had fired. Doyle._

Jane, Korsak, Frankie, Frost and Maura had spent the time talking this out. They worked contingency plans, and they all agreed this wasn't going beyond their tight knit group. There would be no mention to anyone else, in the department or otherwise, because no one was willing to risk word getting out, especially if word got around to the fire station before they closed this.

Irish mob fathers on the catwalk had _not _been factored into their plans. Ever.

Just the other night she got the call from her best friend, the one where Maura had barely managed to get words out. They were at the hospital, her mother was in emergency surgery, it was critical. Despite the late night hour, relatively clear roads, and speeding the entire way… it still took an eternity to reach her best friend. Time dragged endlessly, and every stop light was suddenly red.

It took an eternity for Doyle's body to fall. More than once in the long stretch of moments, Jane wondered (recklessly, irrationally) if she could catch him. Somehow soften the blow. She knew it would be bad. She'd seen the shot—God, she hoped it wasn't from her gun.

Doyle's body had buckled almost instantly, the weight dragging it over the railing. Everyone tensed when it landed with a solid, sickening thud. There was such a finality to that noise.

Jane knew the bullet (bullets?) were going to be hollow points. The wounds would be ugly, through and through. _Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you._ The words suddenly seem inappropriate, and this is the farthest cry from Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid. This is more than a knife fight, and there are no rules in a gun fight for sure.

Cop or not, Jane Rizzoli likes to fix things. She knows it's useless, but something ingrained in her makes her move forward, reaching for Maura and for Doyle. The mobster deserves jail and more, but he has to be alive first. He's not—she knew it long ago—but Jane refuses to do _nothing_ when Maura looks so helplessly lost.

Her hands reach for him, but the sharp, painfully harsh words from Maura Isles, M.D. stops her in an instant. There is something so raw and brittle in the syllables that makes Jane's blood run cold. _"Don't you _dare_ touch him!"_

Jane's frozen, completely at sea here. Her best friend was on the line. But so was their friendship. When heartbroken red-rimmed eyes glared into hers, Jane finally realized: she may have just lost both.


	2. Chapter 2

_I was surprised to see the follows on this story. This is the follow up, from Maura's POV, and I so adore playing with her character, exploring the threads. This story depends largely on the thought experiment of Schrodinger's Cat. If you aren't already familiar with it, Wikipedia can give you enough of an idea. It centers on entanglement and the theory that a cat in a box may or may not be alive, depending entirely on a previous random event… Not as cerebral as it sounds. If you can make sense of the thought threads, reviews are always treasured. Enjoy._

Throughout her life, Maura has shied away from horror movies. She can quickly point out the fallacies and how each is improbable. But this is all too real, the horror story playing out before her eyes.

It started with the fire, and fires are always the worst. The smell permeates everything, and it reminds her of the things she's seen—wildfires on the savannah, villages burned by armies, and badly wounded victims, the worst carnage always appearing exactly when supplies were at their lowest.

The fire was only the first act, the second was swiftly followed with her mother pushing her frantically to the ground, away from harm. Maura tries not to think about the sound, that sickening crunch and thud of impact, and the breathless moments it took to push herself to her feet and find her mother (it wouldn't be til the EMT crew arrived that she even noticed the aching throb in her wrist).

_It was so hot, but then Africa was always hot. Sweat had become a way of life, and often bathing seemed almost useless. She was pressed against him, skin to skin, both of them exhausted and only starting to catch their breath._

_Days and days of patients, low supplies (supplies were inevitably low, it was a way of life), and a near run in with a guerilla army… They should have fallen asleep as soon as they reached their small Red Cross hut… but they hadn't. _

_Ian's hand lifted slowly, lazy in the heat, gathering her hair slowly, dragging it up from her sticky neck. The breeze teased it, making her sigh in relief. The air was hot, but it was enough to almost raise goosebumps on her skin._

"_Rupee for your thoughts?" he murmured, fingers rubbing lightly to coax away more sweat and let the breeze filter through._

_She shrugged before shifting slightly on the cot, putting a tiny bit of space between them. "I was thinking about Schrodinger's cat." When he didn't say anything, her brow wrinkled. "You know… the theory, the cat in the box, alive and dead. I… I never understood it," she admitted quietly, blushing despite the heat, despite the fact that he wasn't even looking at her. "I think I caught a glimpse of it today."_

"_The… paradox… quantum mechanics?"_

_She shrugged, biting her bottom lip. Most girls would be… well, Maura wasn't sure what most girls would be. Only that she wasn't. "never—"_

"_No, the cat," Ian pressed gently, turning a little to face her better, eyebrows raised in expectation._

"_I never understood how the cat could be alive _and_ dead, because the two states are mutually exclusive… but when that boy, with the burns. Seventy percent of his body, and he passed out, and we didn't know… He was alive and dead at once, and…" She couldn't finish, and she barely made it off the cot and over a bucket before she heaved up the rice portion she'd managed for dinner._

_Ian had been right behind her, but she merely shuddered at his touch, begging for him not to touch her, feeling too vulnerable. Too raw. It would take the threat of Ian staring an IV to get her to calm and sip water again—she'd relented because medical supplies weren't the only things that were low, and she wasn't going to waste precious liquids on herself._

Paddy Doyle fell so far. He fell for so long. And in those long moments, all that Maura could think was that ridiculous cat was back. He as alive and dead, fully both, fully neither. She was surrounded by people and entirely alone. Paradox. Ludicrous. And horrifyingly real.

Maura had lost her birth mother. If the woman wasn't dead before, she was dead to Maura now. Most people would look at Paddy Doyle's fall, see his body and have that spark of hope. Maybe he would beat the odds, maybe by some freak of fate he could survive. She knew all too well how impossible that was. If he somehow defied death, his body would be too damaged to do much beyond survive. The brain trauma itself… devastating. No, she knew too much for that glimmer of hope. Her birth mother is dead now. Her biological father is, for all practical purposes, dead, too.

Her mother… Constance Isles… she can only hope. And hope is draining between her fingers these days. Family isn't an area where she has much expertise.

A hand is reaching out, reaching for Paddy Doyle, and she reacts. Everything protective, and all of her accumulated anger at the universe in general rears its head. "Don't you touch him!" she snaps, almost feeling the touch, even though it was directed toward another.

Maura is raw nerves and panicked helplessness. "Don't you _dare_ touch him," she emphasizes, suddenly feeling too trapped. There is no way out, not without more people. Her childhood phobia of expectations and questions choke her, making her rasp in a way the dry, smoke laden air did just days before.

Jane is before her now—best friend and worst enemy. Maura's eyes are glued to the man on the ground. Dreading reality, wanting to hide under covers until the horror film ends. And eventually the box has to open. The cat will be either alive or dead, but Maura is afraid to look. She's afraid she might be inside.


End file.
